As the oldest tennis tournament in the world (est. 1877) – tennis fans from around the world descend onto the West London suburb every June/July in the hopes of seeing some of games biggest heroes  defend their titles or go further in the along in the championships to win the silver gilt cup (for men) or the Rosewater Dish (for women).

Thanks to the Acer-U Experience, I got the chance to see the game in person on Day 3 – Wednesday, June 27th – and spent a brilliant day watching a few matches, checking out the crowds running around to get to their respective courts or downing bowls of the traditional strawberries and cream.

We’d scored tickets for the coveted No. 1 Court where we saw exciting matches between  Samantha Stosur vs Arantxa Rus, Andy Roddick vs Jamie Baker and Tsvetana Pironkova vs Maria Sharapova (that girl can grunt!).

Pic: Stuart Gillies

A day later was the chance to put everything we observed in action at the Surbiton Racket and Fitness Club. We met Dr Nick Ovenden – a mathematician from LSE who shared his formula for achieving the perfect serve – and a few coaches from the club who showed us a couple of serves which proved Dr Ovenden’s equation.

Pic: Stuart Gillies

Both the kick serve and the slice serve were techniques that took into account the main variables that come into play in Ovenden’s formula – ball toss, racket direction, and spin and speed of the ball. I was much better at the slice serve than the kick – but the experience was enough for me to possibly give the game another chance (watch this space folks!).

Pic: Paul Evans

Check out the team on our journey around the UK and discover more about the challenges at: https://www.facebook.com/AcerUK/app_329103610497351

The post What we’ve been up to… checking out Wimbledon + learning the perfect serve appeared first on The Cultural Exposé.

The fabulous Ping! – a celebration of all things ping-pong – returns to London for a unique free launch event on July 4th, off the back of 2010’s massive season which saw 100 tables set up across the city.  This time, the Ping Pong Parlour bus – a mobile ‘table tennis social club’ – will briefly park in London before heading to the cities of Birmingham and Hull. There, residents of both areas will get to experience a whole calendar of bat-swinging and ball-pinging events: from 100 ‘Stop and Play’ tables across both cities, to ping pong jugglers, creating your own bat and even taking on the table tennis professionals in real ‘Beat the Champ’ tournaments. But fear not Londoners – Canary Wharf Ping! be holding events throughout the month – so all bankers will get a chance to do some batting too.

So what are you waiting for? Dig out those ‘70s style shorts, dust off that grimy cotton headband and make like you’re in Air’s ‘Kelly Watch the Stars’ video. Ping Pong is “officially” the new tennis! (Words: Aoife Moriarty)

For more info, visit: www.pingengland.co.uk

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